Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 12:30:55 -0600 Subject: Re: an ominous silence: let's chew on this I don't know why, but right after I got this message, I listened to that saturday's broadcast of Tosca, from the metropolitan opera in new yawk, on the ChevronTexaco international radio network, starring Catherine Malfitano as Tosca, Franco Farina as the painter Cavaradossi, James Morris as Scarpia and conducted by Daniel Oren with staging by none other than Franco Zeffirelli, who sounds important, at least from an artistic standpoint. (ya, I know... his R&J left me a sex-paralyzed adolescent, sick with lust for the young Juliet, played by Olivia Hussey)(thanks for sharing) and your host, Peter Allen. I started where I always start: I read the message, I listen to the opera, then I look far into the vast nexus of my global brain and learn. This time I looked and learned about a couple things about tosca, about ground zero, about artists and about myself. (Not really) If you are not familiar with the story of tosca, please feel free to take advantage of the elegant resources provided by the metropolitan opera and it's subclasses. For example, the opera guild has a quick summary of the story at http://www.operaed.org/learningcenter/tosca/story.htm (I think it's notable that this URL is a sensible address) This is where I turned to find out that tosca is about a painter, a criminal, a corrupt and lascivious official, and a beautiful woman, who just happens to sing. Woo! Hey, wait a minute - That big long email about class, marx, art and the cusp of modern/postmodern/nextmodernism is kind of like talking about art, and painters, and cops and lust and fear and flight from persecution (I thought) ... ok, close enough - this aint rocket science - Let's use the tosca thing to reply to that interesting smart guy who is also sadly, and clearly, one of the millions and millions of rw humans who were cut by those planes as they cut, like sick video-loops of failure, directly into and through the too-too sullied flesh of New Yorkers, of New York City, of America and of the free- and not-so-free world. (feeewf!) trade towers web site: http://www.nyctourist.com/wtc_new1.htm As in art, so in life. I knew that there would be a point where tosca and ground zero would come together in a synergy of significant meaning and I knew that that synergy of meaning is far too rich and beautiful so that I could never even dream of describing it and I didn't even have to take a second to guess where to look for it and I found it, immediately, with saintly and googly google. I typed *tosca ground zero* into it's loving arms and I found, right there in my dining room, the story of a rescue dog named Tosca, a Belgian Malinois (?) who, with human in tow, dove straight into the depths of hell and nextmodernism, trying to find an answer, but finding none, yet finding lots. you'll find it on the .pdf system: http://www.aoa-net.org/Publications/DO/depths1101.pdf It may be noteworthy that Tosca's human partner is an Osteopath, I'm not sure. Now, we somehow extend Giacomo Puccini's aural masterpiece of tuneful beauty; a tragic story of broken hearts, seething hatred in the hearts of the powerful and people falling from buildings: Moved by the suffering of people, a man becomes an Osteopath(!), moved by beauty, a human names a beloved pet after a favourite artwork, moved by tragedy, said human goes into the depths of hell-on-earth 0.0 just in the faint hope of helping at least one stranger, because that is all he can do - he must help, it is in his nature, like the painter in the story of the opera (maybe). What can an artist do? What can an artist not do? In the immortal words of the most recognizable of new yawkers, Woody Allen, *these are the wrong questions*... But that really doesn't help either. Like Led Zeppelin, volcanos and Beckett's clear illumination of *I cant go on, I must go on* as the single, true operating principle hereby on spaceship earth for the monkey men, the collapsing towers will be with us, now, forever, yadda yadda. Artist Wanted. Apply Within. atb b I'm sorry; I don't think this post has a pedigree... ;-> <saul ostrow> -> >Bill take a deep breath and let me know what you think of this: >9/11 and the Cultural Revolution > > Among the many casualties of 9/11, the date of the attack on the >Pentagon and the World Trade Center, respectively symbols of the United >State's military and economic might many artists^ lost their faith in >the value of what they were doing. In a shocked state, they asked >themselves how in the face of such horror could they continue to engage >in what they could only now imagine to be the self-indulgent expression >of the minutiae of their ordinary lives. Hadn't the making of art >become just another narcissistic activity? What did it matter what they >thought to be of theoretical or cultural importance? What sense did it >make to worry over an abstract painting's ability to have meaning or to >want to make transparent the mass media's control over our sense of >self? How could any of this matter in the face of our renewed sense of >mortality and vulnerability? These artists, young and old, questioned >their commitment and desire to produce, to nurture and succor the hope >that they once found in their work. Now this seemed nothing more than a >sign of their impotence. Art, socially engaged or as a sign of personal >expression could not matter the way it once did. Among many artists >there is sense that Art at least as they had known and desired it was >just an illusion,. That rather than a form of engagement. it is just >another way to withdraw from the world... >
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Bill take a deep breath and let me know what you think of this:
9/11 and the Cultural Revolution
Among the many casualties of 9/11, the date of the attack on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center, respectively symbols of the United
State's military and economic might many artists^ lost their faith in
the value of what they were doing. In a shocked state, they asked
themselves how in the face of such horror could they continue to engage
in what they could only now imagine to be the self-indulgent expression
of the minutiae of their ordinary lives. Hadn't the making of art
become just another narcissistic activity? What did it matter what they
thought to be of theoretical or cultural importance? What sense did it
make to worry over an abstract painting's ability to have meaning or to
want to make transparent the mass media's control over our sense of
self? How could any of this matter in the face of our renewed sense of
mortality and vulnerability? These artists, young and old, questioned
their commitment and desire to produce, to nurture and succor the hope
that they once found in their work. Now this seemed nothing more than a
sign of their impotence. Art, socially engaged or as a sign of personal
expression could not matter the way it once did. Among many artists
there is sense that Art at least as they had known and desired it was
just an illusion,. That rather than a form of engagement. it is just
another way to withdraw from the world...